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Magic
Magic refers to, well, the spells and such that clerics, mages, shamans, witches and other magically gifted people use in the Land of the Living. There are different subtypes of magic which have different functions. Some are used mainly for attack whereas others are mainly protective. They range from relatively minor things like projecting purple spots on walls to immensely powerful spells that can rearrange continents, change planets' alignments and switch the places where species live... although using any type of magic from small to major spells will drain the mage's mana appropriately, which can at times even result in the caster's death or worse. Source(s) of Magic The actual source(s) of magic remain a hotly debated topic in academic circles even in the Third Age despite extensive research which has been made on the subject over the millennia and past ages. Mages have put forth many speculations on the exact nature of magic and where it comes from, and over the years they've drawn some conclusions from experiments and historical records and use their theories to fill in the rest although they still continue studying the subject. Theories: * Magic mostly draws upon the four elements which are Air, Earth, Fire and Water. This is presumably the case even in the shunned or rare schools of magic like among necromancers and time mages whose spells differ from those used by white and black mages. * Mages can also channel mana, magic without element, in some spells, and it is seen as a controlling element in various spells. Some scholars argue that mana is in fact the primordial form of all magic from which the 'common' elemental magic actually originates. * Unlike elemental magic, the specific Light and Shadow based spells presumably come from the gods although some claim that this magic comes from the realms of the Land of the Living (Light) and the Land of the Dead (Shadow) or that they actually originate in the Void based on the fact that magic seems to also exist in the Demon Realm and the High Plane which are separate from the Lands of the Living and the Dead. Some scholars argue all magic in general and not just Light and Shadow comes from the gods, whereas others claim that magic exists independently from the gods and that gods just want to think that mortals can access such powers through them. * Gods presumably grant access to higher magic based on their own alignment, so gods of Light like Cardia and Hephaestus would allow their worshippers to use Light based magic whereas gods of Darkness like Mardük and Nergal would allow their worshippers to use Shadow based magic. * The gods grant their followers unique magical abilities and access to special spells depending on the follower's experience, skill in magic and status in the clergy. A high cleric would thus cast more powerful spells not only because of experience but because of his or her faith in the god in question being the strongest if this theory is to be believed. Laws of Magic All spells can be protected against if one knows a spell which can counter the specific spell's effects. There is no general "dispel magic" spell so each counter has to be discovered, learned and mastered on an individual basis. The only known exception to this common protection rule is the shamanic shiropyr spell which will always succeed in killing its target and can't be countered but which will also always take its mortal caster's life as compensation. All mortal casters will eventually wear themselves out after casting many spells, and they have to rest for a while before they can cast more spells. Depending on how advanced the spells are and how experienced the mages casting them are, the mages can wear themselves out faster or slower. The only casters who are known to be capable of constantly spamming high-level spells without draining themselves over time are the gods and the Andain. Demons often use an innate ability of theirs to mask themselves as various mortal races of the Land of the Living. This means they can pass themselves off as e.g. humans, elves or dwarves and thus infiltrate societies. Depending on the demon's skill in shapeshifting, its powers and how well it can mask its aura, an experienced mage or someone who can otherwise sense and track demonic auras (such as someone who has demonic lineage and thus shares demonic blood to some extent) will be able to at least sense that something is "off" about the disguised demon if said demon is nearby. Higher demons with greater powers like archdemons are generally more adept at hiding their demonic auras even from most high-level mages and even from lesser demons to an extent. However, if the roles are reversed, a higher demon is often capable of sensing a lesser demon's aura and notice it is in disguise even if said lesser demon is good at masking itself. There is also an old saying among mages which states that "all magic comes with a price". It often means that the life of the person who begins using magic will never be the same and how they can end up relying on their own school of magic to such an extent that they become addicted to it and end up becoming magic's "slaves" in the process if they're not careful. Personal Magic While with basic spells this effect is barely noticeable, with more advanced and powerful spells a bit of the caster's personality will be embedded into the spell. This can range from mere decorative effects, due to fluctuating spell implication differences from person to person, to the vast difference in both materialization and strength. Take for example a strong pin-point attack spell. While a calm, calculating mage will throw a thing, piercing and efficient arrow of magic, able to be thrown at great accuracy but debatable effectiveness, a strong, headwilled, perhaps even angry person will throw a thick spear of gashing energy, completely disintegrating its target and the dozens of others beside it. An Alentian scroll suggests that decorative effects are due to the differences in personalities, and as no two souls are the same, nor will two advanced spells. Will of Magic? There's been speculation among mages whether magic actually has a will of its own and simply grants people access to it for its own reasons or if it is a mere passive force which various gods, people and creatures simply use however they please. 11 years after the Cataclysm, there's been a recorded instance of a change in magic. The pillar of pure mana created by the Beacon of Alent was tampered and infected with through the complex mix of demonic and necromantic magic, which led to a metamorphosis of sorts in the very magic of the Beacon. The affected mana in the Beacon hit Unithien Greyrain and temporarily turned her into a living conduit of the Beacon's magic which nearly resulted in the destruction of Alent as well as creation of various golems of pure energy. Even after the incident was over, some traces of the Beacon's power remained in Unithien, indicating a possibility that higher magic will leave its mark on the person who has used it. It remains to be seen what effects this change in the Beacon will have in the long run. Threats to Magic In general magic is seen as an inseparable part of the world so few if any question its existence. However, during the First Battle of Remonton, the then-revenant bard Leon Alcibiates used the First Law of the Andain, to draw power from paradox, when he managed to access his past Andain powers briefly even though he wasn't supposed to have them anymore in his current non-Andain revenant body. When he used the paradox of accessing powers which weren't supposed to exist in the world anymore in an age when all Andain were extinct, he managed to access those powers after all. That act allowed him to use his temporarily accessable Andain powers to utterly shatter Hideyoshi Ofuchi's shard of Krystallopyr and thus eliminate a dangerous artifact so that it could no longer be used by power-hungry people. There were consequences to Leon's actions, however, because he used power which wasn't meant to exist, and he resided in a revenant body in the Land of the Living and thus was an unstable existence. His unnatural existence as well as briefly accessing his past powers affected everyone's Innate Ability and every magic user in general in the world, cancelling everyone's innate ability and spells simultaneously worldwide for a while. Had Leon been drawing on his latent powers longer while Innate Abilities existed, he speculated it would've resulted in him destroying all magic in the Land of the Living and thus turning all mages powerless. The point later became moot when Leon was granted full mortality for his services to the world in the Isle of Yggdrasil instead of remaining in the revenant body. His new, mortal body also allowed him to shatter his few remaining links to his former Andain powers and thus become an "ordinary", living and non-Andain being whose presence no longer threatened the balance of Life and Death. Leon's example proved that the unnatural existence of an undead in a world of the living, combined with the then-active Innate Abilities which were drawn from the deaths of all Andain in the Explosion, could shake the balance of the world. Likewise, the actions of the Godslayer, who ate the gods of Order and Chaos, resulted in the catastrophic Cataclysm which erased Innate Abilities. The examples of the Godslayer and Leon's actions seem to indicate that paradoxes (Godslayer forcing the opposing Order and Chaos to coexist in its stomach and Leon being dead and using Andain powers in an age where no Andain should be able to exist) can in fact threaten magic and possibly even erase it from existence altogether. Why paradoxes have this much power over magic remains unknown to this day. Very little research has been made on the subject mainly because no one really dares to carry out such experiments in fear of accidentally destroying all magic in the world. Enchantments Curse A curse is a spell which threatens the targeted person to have bad luck which can range from minor annoyances like burping involuntarily to agonizing deaths. Witches in particular are specialized in casting curses on people they deem "worthy" of them such as people who insult their looks as was the case with Fabian Mullet who was cursed by a shitton of witches, everyone casting an individual curse on him, after he had called them butt-ugly. Curses can be broken, the simplest (to an extent) way being to force the caster to dispel it. Usually the caster is unwilling to do so, which means another alternative is killing the caster which will then nullify the curse as it is no longer bound to the caster's lifeforce. Geas A geas is a specific kind of curse which forces the targeted person to obey the caster's commands or they will suffer. Unlike a curse, a geas can be rebelled against and the victim has free will but usually doesn't try to act against the geas due to fear of what will happen if the geas is broken. A geas can be cast via a multitude of ways such as touching magical objects like when Malphas d'Xuvadon was tricked into kissing an enchanted ring worn by Nina Heeate L'andariel which made him fall under the "fealty or death" geas, forcing him to either follow Nina's every whim or perish. Breaking a geas is more difficult than breaking a curse as it's a somewhat more complicated spell. Shapeshifting Shapeshifting, i.e. taking another shape than your own such as turning into an animal, is an art that not many mortal mages have mastered. The reason is that taking an animal's shape has a drawback: the longer you stay in the chosen animal form, the harder it will be to fight the animal instincts and turn back into your original self. Many mages who have tried the spells have remained as animals for the rest of their days, losing all reasoning and becoming true creatures of the wild. There are some families who possess a natural talent for shapeshifting. The most notable of these are members of the House of Aurelac and people related to them by blood due to the magical connection to the Andain lord Kagetsu I, the founder of the Aurelac dynasty and forefather of all the Aurelacs born since. Many demons seem to possess an ability to shapeshift into other forms to masquerade themselves in human, elven and dwarven societies. It is believed this is an innate talent of theirs which is why so many of them, even lesser demons, are capable of such a feat. Shapeshifting usually requires that the mass one is changing into is relatively equal to one's original mass as that makes changing between forms easier. However, there are times when it's possible for a person to shapeshift into gigantic and tiny forms such as with Fabian Mullet who, due to bein cursed by a multitude of witches, could one day end up turning into a cockroach and in the next day turn into a cow thanks to the effects of the curses. Fabian didn't shapeshift voluntarily into these forms, though, so it's possible that curses which are forced on people will be able to perform feats which a conscious mage wouldn't be able to do otherwise such as changing mass in such a drastic manner. Magical Constructs Binding Seals A binding seal is often an item (whether a weapon or an artifact or a gem) in which a mage binds someone's spirit. Depending on what kind of person or creature is being bound, the effects can vary and the cost might be greater for the mage who does the binding. Known binding seals are: * The Dragon Diamond which was created by sacrificing the lives of an entire population of the city-state of Dar'Cenrath in the First Age to bind the soul of the dark dragon Frazzn'korth into it and which was later used by Omaroch d'Zarnagon to bind the spirit of the archdemon Malakhia d'Zarnagon into it in the Third Age. * A shard of Krystallopyr which, when used in conjunction with Plushiebunny's magical eyes, was used by Awar to create a binding seal with which he trapped the god Shakkan into the shard. * A sickle used by Razravkar Dominus with which he bound the spirits of the people he had slain within it, most notably the spirit of Andronus Callente. * A scepter used by Deidra Finian to bind three demon spirits into it. Golems Magical constructs are rather rare at least as far as the public is concerned. The Magicracy of Alent has in fact tried and somewhat succeeded in building golems, metal automatons which are fueled by magic, although they aren't common and are often kept secret from the rest of the Alentian populace. Elementals :See: Elemental Elementals are beings from the High Plane who are tied to one of the four main elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water) or some variants thereof (e.g. Ice, Sand) and who possess abilities ranted by the element they represent. It is speculated they are creatures formed by or from magic, but some say they are simply a race who happen to possess powers of certain elements. Whatever the truth behind them is, they are capable of casting extremely destructive magic and can literally take an army to banish back to the High Plane. Magic Incarnate :See: Keepers The Syndicate, a secretive elven faction of mages, studied magic intensely and eventually wanted to create what they called 'magic incarnate', a being born of a mother of flesh and fathered by magic itself and who could act as mana's conduit in the Land of the Living. It was a complex ritual which ultimately succeeded, resulting in the birth of the elf Zeranafska. There was another such instance, a half-elf boy created in a similar way by infecting a pregnant elf with the Blood Fever by a mysterious Dark Sage who was a treacherous member of the Syndicate. How the Dark Sage achieved this is not known but the Syndicate saw Zeranafska, the Cursed One, as a counter to the threat the Sage's half-elf apprentice posed. Details of the Syndicate's and the Dark Sage's experiments with these incarnate beings were lost in the mists of time, but the Keepers, a secretive group of selected individuals who opposed the Dark Sage's ambitions, recorded the events in a tome which later ended up in the hands of Nymgrock Sigiln. Knowledge of the incarnate beings is thus extremely rare and only a select few individuals, primarily the current age's Keepers, know of the success of such an experiment. Types of Magic Currently known types of magic are listed below. Information on many of them is scarce at the moment but academics in various mage schools continue to study the different schools of magic and add their findings whenever they discover something useful or interesting. Black Magic Black magic is highly destructive magic that uses powers opposite to white magic for offensive purposes. It can manifest in all the four elements (air, earth, fire, water) and with various levels of power depending on the skill of its caster. Blood Magic A very rare school of magic, blood mages use blood, whether theirs or someone else's, as a conduit for their spells. Because of the gruesome way this is done, blood magic is often shunned and is one of the taboo schools of magic among mages. Geomantic Magic Geomantic magic focuses on spells which affect the environment to some extent. They're usually specialized black or white mages who use the terrain to their advantage and can cause earthquakes, form rock shields around themselves and the like. Necromantic Magic Necromantic magic is an unholy school of magic. It, like shamanic magic, is invoked by calling power from the spirits of the dead. However, unlike shamanism, in the case of necromancy the goal is to summon the dead back to "unlife", whether by reanimating corpses or just making a spirit materialize as an advisor or as a minion who can, under the right circumstances, be bound into a weapon. Shadow Magic Some theories suggest that shadow magic draws its power from the Void which is a realm between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. Whatever the true source of this magic is, it is nevertheless dangerous and destructive and highly adaptable. Some even consider it a subtype of shamanic magic, but such claims are yet to be verified. Shadow magic is often used by black shamans, however, who can draw powers from the Void and the Land of the Dead. Shamanic Magic Shamanic magic is an unholy school of magic. It, like necromantic magic, is invoked by calling power from the spirits of the dead. The shaman usually tries to live in harmony with the spirit world, but there also exist black shamans who deliberately subvert the harmony by combining the worst aspects of shamanism and necromancy to dominate the dead and use their powers for foul purposes. The usual spells in shamanism involve the various "pyr" spells which are always written as pýr. The known spells so far are pyr, kuropyr and shiropyr. Summoning Magic Summoning is a school of magic which focuses more on calling spirits or creatures and using them to do the caster's bidding. It is often extremely dangerous because controlling many creatures and spirits can be dangerous to even an experienced caster's psyche. Time Magic Time magic is a rarer type of magic which is used to manipulate time itself. Although it can give great advantages such as haste to its users and disadvantages such as slowing down to the mage's enemies, it is also very unpredictable and less steady as opposed to other types of magic. White Magic White magic is often used for protection and especially healing, although it can occasionally be used effectively against creatures of darkness due to its light-based properties. See also *Classes *Innate Ability *Races Category:Content Category:Magic